KING-TV reports they were transient orcas, not the salmon-eating Puget Sound residents.

The captain of the La Conner-based whale-watching boat Mystic Sea, Monte Hughes, said passengers watched the orcas approach the gray whale then dive. A short time later the gray whale surfaced belly up and jerked upward two or three times as if being hit from below.

The orcas took off and the gray whale floundered for a time but swam away.